


In the Pines

by KenjiroS



Series: Warm nights [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abstract, Blood and Gore, Horror, M/M, No Dialogue, Song Lyrics, Urban Fantasy, Violence, no names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 05:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18114092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KenjiroS/pseuds/KenjiroS
Summary: A banshee's scream means a lot of things for different people.





	In the Pines

_Hey, boy. Hey, boy. Don’t lie to me._

_Tell me where did you sleep last night ?_

  **_Three thousand and six hundred._**

An ear-splitting screech pierced the night. No stars, no moon. Darkness blanketing the city like a shroud. Outside, the wind pierced through cloth and bit at skin, frost in the air and snow in the clouds. And yet nothing fell. Nothing moved. He counted the seconds.

**_Three thousand, five hundred and seventy._ **

 A window slammed open. A shout. _Where is it ?_

**_Three thousand, five hundred sixty three._ **

  Doors opening, people crying in confusion. _Get the torches._

**_Three thousand, four hundred and forty seven._ **

  Rifles being loaded. Knives reflecting the dirty streetlights. Bats and pipes and brass knuckles. _Where are the nets ?_

**_Three thousand, one hundred and sixty one._ **

The mob was gathering beneath his feet, twelve floors down in the narrow street. They would hunt for blood. _What about binding circles ? Call the shaman !_

_**Three thousand, one hundred and twenty seven.**_

  And yet the one they would chase was the most innocent. There were curses one could fight. This was not one of them. _Get a doctor !_

**_Three thousand, one hundred and sixteen._ **

  They would look for poison this time. To kill it before it claimed more lives. And because it could fly, it could disappear, it could melt in the shadows… _Get the mortician. He knows all about dead things. And that’s what it will be when I finish it off !_

**_Two thousand, nine hundred and ninety one._ **

He heard the bell ring. Even outside, on the roof, so high above them all, he could still taste the degradation. The filth. The poisoned darkness in their souls. He stood in the wind that cut like a knife and waited for the bell to stop ringing. _He isn’t here. He’s never here when we really need him. What an asshole ! We need him urgently once and he…_

**_Two thousand, seven hundred and sixty._ **

  He turned away. Nothing more he could do. Another one was done. Another life lost. Sickness, he knew. Old age and disease, the woman having lived past a hundred without even trying to stay healthy. And yet, her family would blame the monster. _Let’s go ! It couldn’t have gone far ! This was the last one…_

_**Two thousand, five hundred and eighty six.**_

    They would hunt it, with their guns and nets and poison, and they would never kill it. But they got closer each time. And it was exhausted. It was dying. It was letting itself fade away. _I will drive first, you follow me ! I have an idea where it’s gone…_

**_Two thousand, five hundred and thirty nine._ **

  He stepped away from the edge, heading for his flat. There was no time to waste and yet, no reason to hurry. They were still too far but it would be scared. It would be hiding. It would bury itself in the fallen leaves and try to cover its wings with moss and dirt. And it would fail. _It’s a huge thing, it can’t hide forever. You got the dogs ?_

**_Two thousand, four hundred and ninety six._ **

  Dogs…They’d never had dogs out before. It wouldn’t defend itself against a dog. It wouldn’t touch an animal. It would let them gnaw it to the bone but it would not react. He pushed the door open with more force than needed.

 

 

_Hey, boy. Hey, boy. Where will you go ?_

_I am going where the cold wind blows._

    **_Two thousand and eighty three._**

The portal spat him out in the forest. Not a wolf howl, not a cricket song. The trees were holding their breath, waiting. Listening. Because the scream of what hid among them would mean death. And not even the tiniest flies were ready to part with their tiny glittering lives that were nothing more than a speck of dust on the timeline of the Universe. Just like humans, who were nothing more than a grain of sand in History, there for a moment and gone without a trace.

  Where was it ?

 The soil was dry but the leaves were soft, masking his footsteps. He didn’t carry a light, neither a candle, nor a torch. The moon was rising through the clouds and her soft touch turned the world silver and grey, silken and unreal. He breathed in the green scent of the forest and listened. Not for the crinkle of leaves or the cream that called Death, but for the choked breath of waning life and strangling guilt.

  Where was it ?

  He kept looking around, waiting for the moonlight to reflect off of a feather or a lock of shiny hair. It was killing itself out of guilt, he knew, and it refused to stop. It was up to him now, the time had come for him to speak up. To finally put his foot down. But first, he had to find it. It was often so easy to find, so proud, so set on hiding the poison that ate through its heart and bones. So careful not to show the rot in its mind and flesh and tongue.

Where was it ?

He would do one more funeral in this city. Exactly one more. And that would be it. They would run, he thought. They would…

 

 

_I will shiver the whole night through._

 

  **_One thousand, four hundred and sixty nine._**

    An ear-splitting screech pierced the night. He stopped in his tracks. That hadn’t been the scream of a banshee over a cooling corpse. This…Had been a human scream of pain. Too human. Too real. He looked around. Where had it come from ? There would be others, with lights and dogs and guns.

 Where was it ?!

 Dogs…

 He could hear them.

   He had to get there…He had to stop them…

 Where was it…

  ** _Seven hundred and thirty four._**

  The lights, he had to follow the lights. The moon cast her pearly touch over the trees and he could suddenly see. He could…see.

  The air froze with ice and he felt the chill seep in his bones. Through flesh and tendon and marrow, it dug in him and pierced his lungs. Frost on his cheek, running up his skull and tipping his hair with crystals. It cracked beneath his feet and reflected the moon in millions of ways, and made the breath in his chest come out as clouds.

   Skin so cold it cracked and bled. He knew his lips were turning blue, the dry cold settling under his nails and coating his tongue. He wouldn’t be able to speak. But that was okay. He didn’t need words. Not anymore.

**_Five hundred and fifty three._ **

  The would die. They would all die and it would lose its voice from screaming for them. Because they would all die tonight, in this peaceful clearing, under the moonlight, in the quiet forest. None of them would leave. None. The ice crawled up the dying trees, dug through their roots and froze them form the inside. Nothing survived the ice. Nothing would survive the ice. He would make sure of it.

 

_Hey, boy. Hey, boy. Don’t lie to me._

 

  **_Four hundred and eighty six._**

    There were tens of them. Dozens. With their knives and bats and rifles. The mob had gotten there before him. And they were watching. Silently. This wasn’t a hunt for a criminal or a wild animal…

 

_Tell me where did you sleep last night ?_

   **_Three hundred and sixty one._**

  They were enjoying its pain. Warm blood marred the earth black and red, shiny in the moonlight, and they were all watching it. Like a grotesque theatre, they stood there without speaking while it tried to curl in itself, trying to ease the pain. It wouldn’t work, he saw through the curtain of snow and ice and rage. Its back probably hurt to the bone and it could barely breathe. Because they had taken its wings, its glorious burnished golden wings, and cut them, and chopped them, and spread its lovely feathers in the mud of its own blood. And they were still watching and listening to it, and not seeing and not hearing him…

 

_Hey, boy. Hey, boy. Where will you go ?_

**_Two hundred and ninety four._ **

   The first line fell and yet he couldn’t hear them. They must had screamed, must had pleaded for him to spare them, to have mercy. He couldn’t hear them over its pitiful cries, no voice left to scream. How sad, he thought, mind above everything. All those dead for it, and it wouldn’t even be able to sing for them, to celebrate over their filthy corpses. He would spill enough blood for it to bathe in it, to wash itself clean from their poisonous words and sharp tongues. He would lift it to the highest mountain to keep it safe in the snow, to know it would be alive, to allow it to be free for once in its life.

 

_I’m going where the cold wind blows._

**_One hundred and thirty seven._ **

They all fell. Blood freezing in their veins, lungs crystalising, bones cracking under the thick ice enveloping their flesh. Red and black on the ground, the stars shining above, the silence falling a blanket of moon dust.

  It kept crying. It wouldn’t stop crying. Because of the pain, because it wanted it to end. Because it believed itself guilty. Because it believed them all. Why didn’t it believe him instead ?

  **_One hundred and two._**

  He tried to reach for the wings but they were broken, hollow bones sticking like precious jewels from under thin skin and bleeding plumage, plucked feathers crunching under his feet no matter how carefully he stepped. He reached it, and kneeled, ice still freezing his tongue and cracking under his fingers. It wasn’t moving, just trying to breathe through the pain.

  **_Seventy four._**

  He would never allow this to happen. Ever again. He would keep it safe and warm, and petit and spoil it until it purred. Yes, he would do that. And then, even if it took his entire long life, he would find a way to get it its wings back. And it would sing again, but not with fear. He would take it somewhere they wouldn’t shun it and hate it and hunt it like game. He would shelter it until its tears dried and it smiled again, like it had so many decades ago. He would love it until it wanted to live again.

**_Twenty six._ **

  Yes, he would. He pressed his lips to its soft hair. It would never want for anything. Never.

  **_One._**

****

_I will shiver the whole night through._

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I admit, I did play In the Pines, by Danny Farrant & Paul Rawson on repeat for almost two hours. You got me there. Opinions ?


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